Plan to bug urinals to ‘spy on your wee’ blasted as ‘taking the p***’

Labour has blasted plans to "spy on peoples' wee" as "taking the p***" after a proposal from the Health Secretary to bug urinals to look out for diseases.

Health Secretary Steve Barclay was speaking at the Spectator Health conference when he said putting chips in toilets would ease pressure on the NHS.

He added that it wasn't much different to sharing information on Facebook or Instagram.

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"People trust a company in California with data more than they trust the UK government," he said.

"Put a chip in a urinal and it will tell someone who doesn't even realise they have a condition."

Kidney problems and sexually transmitted diseases are just two conditions often diagnosed with urine.

Barclay asked for a national "conversation with patients” about "the right opportunities around data".

Barclay said: "I think if patients want to be able to get early treatment and are therefore willing to lean on their data, providing that can be done in the right way with the right safeguards that is the conversation we should be having."

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But Labour said the plans were ‘taking the p**s’ while shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, said NHS waiting times are "already down the toilet after 12 years of Tory rule."

"Instead he should adopt Labour’s plan, abolish non-doms and train thousands of new doctors and nurses," he told The Sun.

“Any policy that invades the right to privacy without explicit consent – including bugging toilets, should be dropped," one Tory MP told The Sun, saying that their party should stop chasing a "big nanny state".

They added: “The public deserve to do basic activities like going to the toilet without the state analysing their every move."

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